​Area nonprofits prepare to offer heat assistance

ASHEVILLE – Paying the rent isn't the hard part for Lori Campbell, a former home health care aid left out of work when she hurt herself helping a client climb out of a bathtub.

Like hundreds of others in Western North Carolina, it's keeping the heat on during the winter that can get out of reach.

Appeals for help with heating bills climbed in the mountains last winter, a problem made worse at the time by shrinking federal funds and late changes in government eligibility guidelines that left some aid money unspent.

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